


Ever-after

by aliciameade



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Alternative Universe - The Hollows (Kim Harrison), Demons, F/F, Pitch Perfect Horror Week, Pitch Perfect Horror Week 2019, Post-Pitch Perfect, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-07 12:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20817662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliciameade/pseuds/aliciameade
Summary: For Day 2 of Pitch Perfect Horror Week 2019 - Accidentally Summoning a Demon. And that's...literally the summary here. AU set in Chloe's second senior year at Barden.





	Ever-after

**Author's Note:**

> Largely influenced by elements from Kim Harrison's _The Hollows_ book series. (Read it!)

* * *

When Chloe digs out her antique hand mirror from the bathroom drawer and looks at her reflection, she frowns. “Seriously?”

It’s been scratched to hell. Purposely, if the geometric lines are anything to judge by.

Furious, she storms downstairs and into the den where her sisters are deep into planning the annual Barden Bellas Halloween Extravaganza. She usually leads the party committee but she chose to take a sabbatical this year to make an actual attempt to graduate this year. She’s on year five and while five years is pretty much average, there was no reason she couldn’t have graduated on-time last Spring if she’d simply...tried.

“Who did this?!” she demands, steamrolling over whatever conversation Ashley and Jessica are having.

“Who played Pictionary on your mirror?” 

“That’s literally what I just asked,” Chloe snaps at Cynthia-Rose. She’ll apologize later. Her eyes scan the deathly silent room for the guilty party until they land on Lily, uncharacteristically nonchalant on a couch. She’s way too interested in her phone to not be trying to hide something. “Lily.”

Lily’s eyes meet hers and for all the quiet girl’s quirks—some more disturbing than others—Chloe’s learned how to see through her, at least some of the time.

“This was my great-grandmother’s. It’s been in my family since 1903! What did you even do to it?”

Lily’s lips move but Chloe’s too far away to hear. “What?”

“She said she saw it in a dream and had to draw it,” Flo offers before performing the sign of the cross on herself and shifting to the opposite end of the couch.

Chloe’s on the verge of angry tears. She can feel her face burning with rage and sadness. “I don’t even know what that means,” she bites. “No one better ever go through my shit ever again.” She leaves before she fully breaks down, running up the stairs to slam her bedroom door.

She knows her friends will think she’s being typical overdramatic Chloe, throwing a fit over a few scratches on a mirror. But the mirror, an ornate work of art made of pearl, brass, and silver, had been given to her mother, passed down from her grandmother and from her great-grandmother before her. It had been a cherished possession through wars, through her family’s emigration from Europe, through famine and the depression when it could have been sold to put food on the table.

Chloe’s mother had given it to her when she was 17 as they laid together in her mother’s bed at the hospice center. She shared with Chloe the stories she’d longed to hear after so many years of her mother refusing to let her daughter even touch the object lest she break it. 

She passed away two weeks later. Too weak to attempt more chemotherapy and radiation.

Chloe is devastated.

She cries herself to sleep clutching it to her chest.

* * *

She knows the girls are whispering. They still don’t understand why Chloe was—is—so upset about a mirror. They give her strange looks and a wide berth as she carries the memento with her everywhere now. She’s compelled to protect it.

Two weeks pass and while her anger and fear have faded, she still keeps the mirror close by. Tonight, it’s tucked under her hands while she lies on her stomach in bed while she struggles to make it through the current chapter of Dostoevsky’s _ Demons. _ It’s not about demons at all, she’d realized early on with disappointment, but rather, political and moral nihilism.

Which is ironic, given her lack of belief that there’s any real point to having to read this irritating book.

“Lizavita Nikolaevna Tushena.” She has to sound it out, the unfamiliar combination of letters tripping her up every time they introduce a new character. She doesn’t even know if she’s saying it correctly.

She feels a zap, like static electricity, under her hand. Which is weird, considering she hasn’t moved in order to generate any static electricity. She ignores it and tries the name again. “Lizavita Nikolaevna Tushena.” She rattles it off again quickly, barely noticing the dull ringing in her ears until she finishes speaking it the third time and feels what she can only label as the entire room popping.

“Dude, what the fuck? I was in the middle of dinner!”

The voice comes from the other side of the room and Chloe nearly leaps out of bed in fear at the intruder until she sees it’s...just a girl?

“Who are you?” she asks, panic-stricken though her fear of imminent death has faded.

“Are you seriously asking me that?” The woman is small. No, not small: petite. And dressed, for some reason, in a tuxedo, though the collar is undone and bowtie hanging untied around her neck. She’s brunette and wearing black sunglasses with round lenses and is leaning on a walking stick that could be made out of obsidian for the way it shines.

There’s a hint of sulfur in the air, as though someone’s struck, lit, and extinguished several matches. “Why are you in my room?”

“You tell me.”

Chloe sits up and tries to understand what’s happening, but she fails. “Okay, _ how _ are you in my room?”

“I’m asking myself the same thing,” the girl says as she shifts the walking stick to her other hand. It seems to be used for fashion, not physical need. “Where did you learn my name?”

“Your name?”

“No one’s spoken it in 2,000 years. You must have read it somewhere.”

Her...name? “Lizavita Nikolaevna Tushena?? Wait, did you say 2,000 years?”

The unexpected visitor grimaces like Chloe’s just run her nails down a chalkboard. “Can you stop saying it? Just...Beca. Call me Beca. Don’t ask how it got from...what you said to Beca. It’s a long story. Like, a five-millennia-long story.”

“I’m going to need you to tell me what’s going on. Or am I dreaming? Did I fall asleep studying again?” She looks down at her bed and sees the handmirror resting alongside her thigh. The scratches that had been etched into it are now glowing orange. She leaps away from it expecting to be burned but when she pushes it away, it’s still cool.

“You’re not dreaming.” Beca crosses the room toward her and she shrinks back toward the corner of her bed, evaluating her routes of escape should they be necessary. She thinks she should probably just run and not wait to be given a reason, but despite the stranger invading her home, she doesn’t feel any real fear. Just intrigue. “Where did you get this?” Beca asks as she picks up the mirror to inspect it.

“It was my mother’s.”

“Your mother kept a scrying mirror?”

“What’s a scrying mirror?”

Beca tilts the glass toward Chloe and she flinches as though laser beams are going to shoot from it, but nothing happens. She points at the etchings. “This is a scrying mirror. Used for divination, fortune-telling, and most relevantly, demon-summoning.”

“Demon...summoning?” Chloe’s gaze slides from the glowing mirror to Beca’s face, seemingly perfect in its soft planes and angular features. She can feel her brain trying to put the pieces together like her tongue had tried to put the syllables together but it keeps getting caught up on the fact that this intruder is painfully, unfairly attractive. “Why are you wearing sunglasses? It’s nighttime.”

“It lessens the shock.”

“Shock?”

Beca lifts her hand, the one holding the walking stick, and Chloe watches agape as the stick evaporates and Beca pulls her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to reveal glowing red eyes.

“Oh, my God!”

“Let’s not bring her into this,” Beca says as she pushes her dark glasses back into place. “And you see what I mean? Shock.”

“I’m dreaming,” Chloe says as she starts nodding to herself. She pinches her arm. Then pinches it again. “It’s a nightmare. I just have to wake myself up!”

“Not a nightmare,” Beca says as she tosses Chloe’s mirror back onto the bed and starts to stroll around the room with casual curiosity. 

Chloe’s heart won’t stop pounding and she wants to scream for help but something is stopping her. She watches as this stranger looks over her things; she seems interested in the photos tacked on Chloe’s wall, particularly one from the Bellas’ Regionals competition last year.

“Who are they?” Beca asks and Chloe watches in awe as the tuxedo dissolves into a Bella uniform, pencil skirt, blouse, blazer, paisley scarf, and pumps. Her hair even twists into place, but the sunglasses remain. “And why do you wear this?” she adds as she turns. “It’s so uncomfortable!” It shifts back into the tuxedo she’d arrived in and Chloe wonders if she could pass out from shock.

“Leave my friends alone.”

“Friends?” Beca says as she looks at the photo again. “I’m not going to do anything to your friends.”

“Why won’t you just tell me who you are?” She thinks she might cry soon.

“You already know who I am, but you still haven’t told me how you do.” A high-backed velvet chair appears just as Beca begins to sit and she settles into it comfortably.

“I read it in a book!”

“A book?” Beca’s head turns toward the book that’s fallen to the floor in the chaos. “Were you trying to say ‘Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina’?”

“That’s what I said!”

“No, you said...it was different.”

Chloe huffs. “Stop playing word games. Please explain what’s going on.” A tear escapes then and she sees the pompous look on Beca’s face shift the tiniest bit.

“My informal name is Beca, and you summoned me here from the Ever-after.”

“I...summoned you.”

“You spoke my summoning name three times whilst placing your hand on a scrying mirror. Interrupting my dinner, if I may remind you.”

“So you’re—”

“A demon, yes, let’s move this along. The Ever-after is—” she stomps a polished black loafer on Chloe’s floor “—basically down there, for those who don’t understand multidimensional planes of existence. It’s what you mortals think of as Hell, but it’s honestly nothing like what you think. No rivers of lava. It’s all much, much worse. I could take you back with me. Give you a VIP tour. And I could use a new familiar.” An unnerving smile starts to curve Beca’s lips. “Are you going to tell me what your name is? It’s the polite thing to do, given you’ve managed to drag me here.”

“Chloe.” She has no earthly idea why she offers this...this _ demon _ her name.

Beca sits back in her chair and crosses her legs at the knee. “Chloe.” She seems to be thinking and is silent for a few seconds before she says, “Isadore Goodwin Abraham.”

“What?” The name is vaguely familiar as if she read it once in a book as a child.

“Isadore Goodwin Abraham was your sixth great-grandmother. She tried for years to summon me. Never could, though. Couldn’t get my name quite right. We’d talk through the mirror. She was a powerful witch. Always unsatisfied, always trying new spells and divinations. Never married. She did have two daughters, though, and was cast out of her village. Ironically, not for witchcraft but for having a child out of wedlock. I miss her sometimes.” Though Chloe can’t see them, she can feel Beca’s eyes on her. “You look like her. Are you a witch?”

“What? No!”

“Are you sure?” A glowing, evil-looking ball of green and black appears in Beca’s left hand and before Chloe can process what’s about to happen, she throws it right at her.

She can feel its energy transferring through the air around them. Can feel its heat and its ice and its evil, like it’s full of souls screaming to be released and it’s all hurtling at her and she does the only thing she can think to do.

She closes her eyes and hopes to live.

There’s a pull on her psyche like a plucked guitar string followed by the sound of sizzling and the stench of sulfur.

“Still think you’re not a witch?”

When she opens her eyes she realizes she’s trapped. Trapped inside some kind of a bubble that’s swirling with tints of yellow and blue and the odd smudge of black that’s sitting around her as the green and black energy rolls down it like water on a window to disappear into the floor. She panics and moves and as soon as she touches the edge of the energy field it pops to nothing.

Her heart won’t stop pounding and it’s making her dizzy. “What just happened?”

“You cast a circle of protection.”

“I did what?”

“Look, babe; I’m not here to teach you about witches and demons. That’s what libraries are for. Or, I guess now you have something called The Internet. Read about it and then get back to me.”

Chloe hisses as a burning line drags across her wrist and she looks to see a small scar appear, fresh and red as though she burned herself on an iron. “Get back to you? About what? What did you do to me?”

“You summoned me here, and now you owe me. Learn the basics and then I’ll bring you back with me. I can tell you’ll be a great familiar. So much natural talent. When I decide you’ve repaid me, that mark will be removed.” She’s still grinning like she knows Chloe’s deepest, dirtiest secrets. “But until then, I’m going to get back to my dinner. You have no idea how difficult it is to find fresh fruit and veggies there and I have a carrot and an apple calling my name that I paid handsomely for.”

There’s a chorus of shrieks followed by laughter downstairs and it gets Beca’s attention. She stands and the chair evaporates as she turns toward Chloe’s bedroom door. 

“No, don’t. Please!” Chloe calls out. She’s not sure what she’s trying to stop. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps the stealing of the souls of her closest friends by an evil being from the underworld.

Beca keeps walking but turns and does so backward, still smiling. “They sound like they’re having fun. I can be here until sunrise, so I think I’ll go join the party. Do you have any apples?”

“Please don’t hurt them.” Chloe wants to run but fear weighs her down. Fear and confusion.

“Who said anything about hurting them? After all, you’re the one who owes me, not those girls downstairs. I’m going to go see if you have any apples.” Beca smiles once more before she vanishes right through the door leaving Chloe in silence.

Eyes wide, she looks around the room, sure she has to still be asleep. Everything seems normal now; the mirror’s glass is nothing but silver once again. But there are two burn marks on the hardwood floor of her room right where she remembers the black and green energy Beca had thrown at her dripping off her...force field?! and through the floor.

She looks at her own hands; they still tremble from the rush of emotions: fear, confusion, dare she say intrigue? and, above all else, pure energy that she can still feel flowing through her. She feels it like wind rustling the leaves of a tree making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It’s nothing like she’s ever felt but suddenly experiences from her life start sliding into place. The day a car nearly struck her dog but it stopped when she screamed. The way her friends say she’s able to put people under a love spell, falling for her in the blink of an eye. The curious talent she has in the kitchen at combining counterintuitive ingredients and yielding wonderful results. She remembers sneezing near a candle once and it igniting.

“What the heck?” she whispers to herself. “A witch?”

She feels the room pop and suddenly Beca’s right next to her, lying on her bed casually as if she was there all along to watch a movie together. “And a demon,” Beca says with a grin before disappearing again.

“Wait—Beca!”

“That’s my name; don’t wear it out.”

Chloe can’t even see her but it sounds like she’s right next to her.

“Hey, Chloe!” Stacie’s voice rings up the stairs. “Your friend Beca’s here! Quit studying and come drink with us!”

“Literally, what the heck,” she repeats as she stands. Her entire body is trembling like she’s full of caffeine or carbonation. It could be adrenaline, but she can feel it. Feel the energy of everything around her, of where the circle she’d somehow cast used to be. Of where Beca appeared— and then disappeared. Of the river miles away that feeds the nearby lake and how the water seems to interfere with the energies of everything around it. She can feel her friends downstairs and their happiness but above all, she can feel Beca. And though she doesn’t know what Beca is doing, she can read that no one is afraid, so at the very least, Beca hasn’t killed anyone. At least, not yet.

“I’m coming!” she shouts back as she hurries toward the door to make sure her friends are safe from the demon that’s in their home.

And to ask Lily more about her dream.

** _The end…?_ **


End file.
